i'm on a forum where i have over 4300 posts so its not really as easy as it looks, there has to be a simpler way?

Hit it with a bigger hammer!!!

If you are the administrator, go to the administration panel >Topic Settings >Topics Per Page: and set it for 4300, then go back and try my instructions above. Which should make it much easier to see which threads you started and which you replied to.

I just tried this with a forum with 600 posts and it worked just fine, don't forget to reset your original Topics Per Page values when you are through.

A little tweak of the source files is required - It was a simple fix. You can perhaps even apply this yourself. For a release patch, we would also have to patch users.inc.t for path_info support as well as add a link in the template(s)

Now that is the type of instructions I like to see! Thanks!
Although I will leave it until it is incorporated as a release, I do appreciate your taking the time and effort to provide step by step instructions.

For anyone confused about finding the correct row or line numbers, pasting the file into a PHP editor works for me (there are some decent free ones on line).